Collier's New Encyclopedia

A complete general encyclopedia of 1921 — the world as it was understood just after the Great War, from Aachen to Zwingli, across twelve volumes and six thousand pages.

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New Stars or Novae

temporary stars which, from their sudden appearance in the heavens, are among the most spectacular of astronomical objects. They apparently belong to the class of variables, suddenly increasing enormously in brightness on account of some internal disturbance which upsets the ordinary balance of heat production and radiation and so causes an outburst of incandescent gases. Other explanations are that the outbursts are caused by collisions of meteoric swarms or by sudden plunges of a star into nebulous regions. New stars have been recorded from the most ancient times. The most famous was that observed by Tycho Brahe in the constellation Cassiopeia in November, 1572. It completely disappeared in about a year. A number were observed in the nineteenth century, among them being the spectacular Nova Aurigae, 1891-92, which remains at present as a appeared in Perseus, 1901, exceeded the first magnitude star Capella in brightness on February 23rd of that year. Many novae have recently been observed, particularly within the great nebula of Andromeda. nebulous star. The new star which NORWEGIAN SHIP CONTRACTS CASE. (See UNITED STATES, 1922-23.) OIL: WORLD SUPPLY & CONTROL. largely controlled by chemical substances (See PETROLEUM RESOURCES.)

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